This is really a quality picture…reminiscent of another 70s gem: Phantom of the Paradise.

There’s just something really mysterious and compelling about Futureworld.

Sex with robots!

Jim Antonio is the Clark Griswold equivalent of Clifton James in Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun.

And so this is essential viewing for fans of the recent Ex Machina.

Sadly, director Richard T. Heffron is no longer with us.

And, yes, this is a sequel to the Michael Crichton film Westworld, but Futureworld stands alone.

Peter Fonda is the Ur- Jarvis Cocker. And really some fine acting from Peter.

Blythe Danner is outstanding.

Stuart Margolin is very strong.

We get journalism, robots, cloning…the works.

Think Hillary Clinton has a robot/clone double?

This film appeared on Hulu at a particularly suspicious time as regards that canard.

But see the film and you might not think it’s so crazy after all.

Doubles of world leaders.

That’s the master plan.

It’s not giving much away to tell you that.

That is, after all, the elevator pitch for the film itself.

And it is compelling.

Retina scanners, biometrics, psychic driving, Antonin Artaud…

This was both advanced and historical for 1976.

Ahead and behind.

Which is to say, completely plausible.

The only hilariously bad moments (ok, there’s quite a few) are the guns which seemingly came from the set of the first Star Wars film. Said guns completely destroy suspended disbelief (more than any actual target).

The Westworld tragedy supposedly claimed the lives of about 50 guests.

Pretty close to the fake Pulse nightclub shooting (49).

That being the exact number of the Maidan snipers’ massacre in Kiev (49).

And with Pulse we are there in theme park central.

Disney.

Alligator.

Same week.

Orlando.

Robots are all around us today.

The drones that kill innocent people in Pakistan.

And the driverless cars rolled out by Uber this past week in Pittsburgh.

[I better watch what I say or Emil Michael will sic his opposition research wet dreams on me.]

So yes…we probably have Northrop Grumman to thank for 9/11 (Global Hawk).

All around us. Automation. Lovely.

Watch Futureworld and you will see the technocratic extension of Operation Mockingbird.

Mimic. Opinion leaders. Memetics.

The gene and the meme. Dawkins was right on it.

In the same year. 1976.

Sure, this film is not very precise in some regards.

Are they all robots?

Clones?

Hybrids?

It’s not very clear.

I highly recommend this film for connoisseurs of Baudrillard.

This whole film is an orgy of simulation.

[Though, with a PG rating, not a simulation of an orgy.]

Interesting note…a significant portion of this film was shot “at NASA” in Houston.

I am still alive. Battling a serious case of MBA. And, as such, I was duped into watching what turned out to be one of the finest films I have seen in awhile.

But how did I stumble across this little gem in the first place? For that I must thank the inimitable Kat Dennings. [More about her as we go on.]

Let us first, however, start with Matthew Gray Gubler. As someone who watches very little TV, I was unaware of this rising star in the acting world. Gubler plays Raymond: a newly-minted MBA who can’t even lock down an entry-level job. His character grew on me…from, at first, an American Apparel model come to life…to a lovable outcast with impeccable comic timing.

Circling back, I was curious how Gubler’s 21st-century archetype (the unemployable MBA) would fare in this comedy. As I found out, Suburban Gothic is actually a film of great depth masquerading as a campy horror send-up.

It’s really remarkable, but this film actually does speak for me in some strange way. Perhaps it was because I was listening to The Dead Milkmen this morning. [Watch the film and you’ll understand why.]

Yes, Raymond’s town is a “depressing shithole” to borrow Enid Coleslaw’s pithy diction from Zwigoff’s Ghost World. And the ghosts here are real–literal. But what most impresses me about Richard Bates Jr. (who needs a Wikipedia page) as a director is that he manages to evoke the crappiest reaches of America…from the bombed-out city center of Albany, New York to the harrowing motel highwayside of Roanoke, Virginia…from the strip malls of San Antonio to…well, you get the picture.

It’s one of those films…like Ghost World. It’s Anywhere, U.S.A. [Well, almost anywhere.] It’s the fake vomit-inducing magic of Orlando. It’s the sprawl of Los Angeles. It’s that suicidal ennui which Arcade Fire so deftly encapsulated on their album The Suburbs.

Pariahs of the American south will especially appreciate the wonderful redneck evocation of Raymond’s high-school-football-coaching father (played magnificently by Ray Wise). Yeah…

This film hits a lot of themes. People change. Fat kids get thin. Sensitive souls can’t shake the wimp label. Some places are especially difficult for creative types to endure.

And so if your life consists of frequenting your local Starbucks on the edge of a super-freeway (I certainly don’t know anyone like that…wait? Nope, no one like that around here. This very minute. Right here.), then you just might find Kat Dennings to be especially on-point as the salty crowbar-toting Becca. This film is more about Gubler’s character, but Dennings is indispensable to this moral play.

And what’s the moral? The moral is this: no matter how much you know about demand and supply curves (supply and demand to us lowly folk) there is always a more important line to shift outwards. It’s more micro than microeconomics. It is, in a word, empathy. Respect for the dead. Paranormal. And, most of all, conscience. It is that latter word which sticks in my head…falling from the lips of Godard (forever in my mind) in his whispered Swiss French.

Conscience.

Sure, this film makes Poltergeist look like Citizen Kane, but one senses from the opening credits that such is largely intentional. No big budget here, and yet…this film is frightening and laugh-out-loud. And like a good Simpsons episode, it is more touching than anything Hallmark rolls out of their platitude factory.

John Waters makes quite a fine cameo, but the lion’s share of credit goes to Gubler and Dennings and their auteur-in-the-making Richard Bates Jr. Really a worthwhile flick! Thank you.

This film goes beyond film. Which is not to say it doesn’t have its problems. Like the protagonist, it does. But let me tell you why this film is worth it. No…you know what? This is fucking bullshit! That’s not the way to review a film. This is.

It’s gotta come from the heart and mind. Depend too much on the mind and you miss the beauty. Secrets make you sick. Must be a whole lot of sick people in Langley, Virginia and Fort Meade, Maryland. Go on, look it up. It’ll do you good. But for you lazy bums, that’s the CIA and NSA.

I read about the CIA all the time. Why? I’m only answering limited questions today. But suffice it to say that both of these spy agencies are pretty interesting. Don’t you think?

Well, so that’s one of my secrets. It’s not really a secret. It’s pretty transparent. But maybe not. So, there. Like Robert Creeley said. There you have it.

It’s very hard to not drop into John Berryman testimonial mode when talking about this film (oh yeah, this is a film review…duh!).

First things first: you gotta love a film that premieres at the Omaha Film Festival (!) Just knowing that Omaha has a film festival makes me feel a little less depressed about my life and the shitty town I live in (San Antonio).

And so…our setting: Orlando. It’s like an outtake from Mister Lonely–Cinderella smoking a cigarette at the bus stop. Headed to the theme park presumably… It’s certainly begging for a Harmony Korine touch, though director Nathan Frankowski does a nice job handling this priceless aside in more of a Terry Zwigoff way.

Wow. Somebody needs to give the Wikipedia page for TWLOHA (the movie) some love. I mean, Jesus! A three-sentence plot summary??? There’s lost silent films which have more detailed synopses on Wiki than this!

So I guess my first inclination was correct: speak from the heart.

Well God damnit! There are some priceless moments in this film. The secret weapon is Rupert Friend. I’ll be damned if he doesn’t strike a stake right to my heart…fondling that pocket watch… It’s no jive-ass MC5 John Sinclair rave-up testifyin’ going on. This is some real shit.

For all of the snobs (like me) in the audience: you gotta give this film time. Clear from your mind the unpleasant parallels to the CGI of What Dreams May Come and The Lovely Bones. IT GETS BETTER.

That said. How? Well, once again Ms. Kat Dennings hits a home run. This is no easy role. It’s a tough, tough, TAXING role to embody with anything even approaching Method Acting. But I have a sneaking suspicion that Dennings felt this role naturally (to a certain extent).

How does this film go beyond film? Because. Ghost World was a masterpiece. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist was perfection for its genre (young adult comedy romance). Charlie Bartlett was a mini-masterpiece…a damn good film. Hell! Daydream Nation was pretty fucking good too. But TWLOHA moves into the social realm…because it touches on depression and substance abuse (not to mention the cutting words of the haiku title) in a real, sobering way. No pun intended. At least not the sober one.

Yeah. What does this mean for you, dear WordPress blogger…or for someone who stumbled across this article? It means you are powerful beyond your wildest belief.

Every time you commit your precious thoughts to the page and share them with people (comma) you are saying the only stuff that people believe anymore.

It doesn’t mean you can talk about reptilians and be taken seriously (no offence to my reptilian theorist brothers…and sisters). No, it means that the only people who have CAPITAL in SINCERITY are everyday people like me…and YOU.

We don’t believe the lies anymore. We’ve swallowed so many damned secrets that we’re sick to death. We can’t sleep. But we are fucking powerful! Hillary Clinton knows it. Zbigniew Brzezinski knows it. I’m not sure if David Rockefeller knows it. Nor George H.W. Bush.

That’s ok. They came from a different generation. Hell…I’m not even a “digital native”… Not a Millennial. I guess I am part of that lamentable flannel fuzzed Generation X. I hyphenate when I damn well please.

I make inside jokes that only I get. I don’t have any friends. Not anymore. But I have family. I have cats. Some days I think my best friend is an extraterrestrial in Turkey. Or a classmate from Iran. But most days my best friend is an actor or an actress.